


The Children of Osiris

by TheVoidInMyHead



Category: Vampire: The Masquerade, World of Darkness (Games)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-31 21:21:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20121850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheVoidInMyHead/pseuds/TheVoidInMyHead
Summary: A vague recollection of events that took place at a temple up in the mountains of Nepal, as written by a member of The Children of Osiris.





	1. Chapter 1

1\. He asked me if I had wanted to die. And once upon a time, I guess I did. He had granted my wish, just not how I expected him to. He had tricked me, and for that I would forever hate him from the bottom of my heart. So I turned my back on him and left. I turned my back on him, my bloodline and the world and went in search of peace of mind. And I found it. At a temple high up in the mountains of Nepal. They called themselves The Children of Osiris and through their guidance, I learned how to be at ease with the beast that I have inside of me.


	2. Chapter 2

2\. I had once been asked by my mentor what made me feel powerless. The answer was easy. Being unable to help someone in need. It was my worst fear, because it made me lose touch with my humanity. What he had said next however, shook me to my core. He had told me to let go, to willfully turn my head and walk away from someone who needed aid the next time I would see someone who did. It would be the only way to gain control over it. I had hated even the thought of it. I had asked him if there was another way, but he had only sighed and shaken his head. I would have to come to terms with the fact that, to reach a state of tranquility, was to destroy my fear by turning it into something that could be controlled. Or as he had put it, to chose to lose control was to gain it.


	3. Chapter 3

3\. The temple was simple but impressive. Very colorful as well. Mandalas were painted on the walls and I remember the first time I set foot into it clearly. A monk had let me in and shown me to a room filled with candles. I had felt the panic rise inside me at the sight of the hundreds of small flames. It had been the first of many rituals. This one had been for my initiation. The monk had told me to remove all of my clothes, my watch, my necklace and even the piercings in my ear. As I stood there naked I had felt vulnerable, not embarrassed, just utterly frail and impermanent, not like the immortal being that I was. He had gestured to the other end of the room. I had walked through it, slowly and carefully to avoid the flames of the candles all over the floor. When I had crossed it, I had looked back at the monk for further instructions. He had smiled and bowed his head. Then he had cleared a small circle in the middle of the room of candles and waited for me to sit down with my legs crossed. He would be back, he had said. And nobody would disturb me here. When he returned, he had a white bundle with him and had handed it to me. It had been a simple, sleeveless, ankle long robe. The same he was wearing as well. The same everyone was wearing, as I had found out just past two corners later, where residents were busy reading scriptures that had looked so old I was worried they’d turn to dust in their hands. Kindred of all ages resided here. And I didn’t mean elders and neonates, I wasn’t referring to generations. I meant the age they died at. What I also noticed was that everyone at the temple had shaved their heads and I had currently been the only one with hair left on their head. It wouldn’t be for long though, because at the next stop, which had been a room with an enormous tapestry depicting the Egyptian deity Osiris, I was instructed to sit down once more and had my head shaved. I had inquired what would happen to my hair and the monk had informed me that it would be donated to make wigs from it. It had made me quite happy to hear it. For the first few nights the shaved head had felt strange. They didn’t have mirrors at the temple, but the water in the integrated bathhouse was so clear that I could see my reflection in it. It had felt a bit like seeing someone you hadn’t met for a long time and thus had trouble recognizing them. After about a week of following the same monk who had opened the door for me and taken me in, he had given me a choice. I could either remain under his care, which would make him my mentor, or I could go the path that most of the disciples took, and that was being mostly left alone and conducting their own studies. I had chosen to stay with my mentor. And in retrospect it had been one of the best decisions I had ever made.


	4. Chapter 4

4\. On week two, one of the nuns at the temple had woken me up an hour before sunset and I had instinctively known that something was wrong. Her voice had been calm, but her eyes hadn't been. She had been scared. Of what, I hadn’t known. The thing I had noticed back then though, was that she hadn’t shaved her head, because there hadn’t been time. The nun had dragged me out of my room, the smell of fire had burned in my nose, and wherever I had looked, I had seen nobody up. It had been strangely quiet. Strangely calm. Except for the terrified nun beside me, who had tried to pull me with her down the hallway by my hand. I had resisted. I hadn’t felt scared. I had told her to stay put and run off to see where the source of the fire had come from. It hadn’t taken long to find it. Some of the monks had lit a large bonfire in the middle of the prayer hall, just one hallway away from where we had slept. I had walked over to them and bowed. They had greeted me heartily and offered me to join them by the fire, which I couldn’t because there was a near frenzying nun up and about. When I had addressed the issue, they had told me to lead them to her. She hadn’t been where I had left her. It had been the start of a three hour search for what would later be known at the temple as the Frenzied Nun incident. In her terror, she had run and then proceeded to climb up a very steep part on the mountain onto a ledge of which she had been incapable of getting down from again. After retrieving her, I had gotten ready and gone to see my mentor for the night.


	5. Chapter 5

5\. I have to admit, it’s not always easy to be here. My mentor asks a lot of questions and some of them make me uncomfortable. Like the one he asked about ten minutes ago, right before we were done for the night. Would you walk into the sun if I told you you could do so without coming to harm if you really believed it? It took me a while to answer. A long while. And I was definitely not looking at him when I answered. I couldn’t do that, there was too much doubt in my mind. Upon hearing no to his question, he had placed his hands on my shoulders and spoken a truth that I had been trying to hide, that I had been trying to deny. I didn’t believe in myself. What he asked next, was worse. So much worse. It was one simple word. Why? It was a horrible word, given the right circumstances. This was one of them. I looked everywhere, except at him. I felt bad I didn’t, but I wouldn’t be able to take his reaction to what I was about to say next, or at least that’s what I thought at the time. He listened to all of it without ever interrupting me and when I had spilled my very soul to him, only then did I dare to meet his eyes. I hadn’t expected to see what I saw. A strange warmth and kindness that seemed to radiate off him and envelope me. It made me feel calm again. It felt like I was being healed from the inside out. And maybe, I really was. My mentor dismissed me for the night and as I left I could have sworn I heard him quietly speak the words, I believe in you.


	6. Chapter 6

6\. It was three days after my last conversation with my mentor. Since then I hadn’t seen him. I didn’t quite know if he was avoiding me on purpose to give me space, or not. I had asked around the temple if anyone had seen him, but they said they hadn’t. None of us ever lied. One of our tenets was to always speak the truth. Nobody here ever broke it, at least to my knowledge. Eventually, I found him in the garden, sitting under a tree with a bird sleeping in his lap. It brought a smile to my face. He didn’t acknowledge my presence even though he knew I was there. He always knew. I approached soundlessly as not to disturb him and sat down as well. For a long while, I simply watched the sleeping parakeet. It was a pretty bird. I didn’t notice that my mentor had been watching me soon after I had sat down. His voice ripped me out of my thoughts when he asked me how I was feeling. I felt at peace, to be quite honest and so I told him just that. After all, the garden was one of my favorite places at the temple, right after the room with the candles. As usual, more questions followed, and as usual, I gave a reply to each one of them. The longest being about Osiris who had been slain by Set and brought back from final death by Isis. The Followers of Set, to this date, didn’t know that we still exist, that we were opposing them from behind the scenes at every turn. We were the angels, they the devils and we would forever be at war. It was one of the things everybody here knew to be true.


	7. Chapter 7

7\. Tonight, I learned three valuable lessons. Firstly: Know your own limitations. Secondly: Question what you see. And thirdly: Check if the animals you’re drinking from have been eating fermented fruit and gotten drunk. Because they had been and so had I about a minute or two later. I didn’t think it was possible to make a whole community of usually serious, calm and collected individuals burst out into laughter for a full five minutes straight. I had stumbled into the study hall, piss drunk on horse blood. Apparently the local kids had had the brilliant idea to feed the prized racing stallion of the neighbors in town fermented apples, enough of them to get it drunk and watch it trip over its own hooves. I don’t remember the incident myself, I don’t even remember how I had made it back to the temple in one piece, but I’ve heard the tale told so many times by now that I know that it was my mentor who had brought me back here safe and sound. He had told me to lie down in my room and wait out the effects, but apparently drunk as I was I hadn’t listened, crashed into the study hall and screamed at the top of my lungs that there were horses with wings in the village below and that we should make them our friends so they could transport us to and from the mountain top in exchange for as many apples as they could eat. Needless to say I would probably go down in the temple archives as a cautionary tale on the consumption of alcohol via blood after this whole thing.


	8. Chapter 8

8\. I entered my mentor’s room and could immediately see that he was the slightest bit displeased. With me. Which I didn’t like. It made me feel guilty about what had happened. And he was right, it was my fault. I should have paid more attention. Mindfulness was something that we practiced here every single night. I sat down with a heavy heart, avoided his eyes and didn’t speak a word. The silence stretched on, longer and longer. It was a silence as deep as the one in the vacuum of space. After what seemed like an eternity to me, my mentor finally broke it and what he uttered in a tone so completely filled with regret nearly shattered my world. He stated he was sorry he had upset me by being stern with me. He hadn’t wanted to cause me distress. He hadn’t thought it would to this extend. I bit my lip with one of my fangs until I tasted blood and was asked the reason for my rather intense reaction to all of this, so I told him I understood why he had been stern, that it was more the thought of having disappointed him than the actual lecture that had shaken me so badly. All I heard after that was a long sigh as I continued to sit with my head lowered, muttering apologies under my breath. Stop. It was the first real command I had ever been given in my time here. Take my hand. It was the second one. When it came into view, I took it. Calm down. The third one. Look at me. The final one. Again, I did as I was told and met his eyes. I hadn’t calmed down however, not yet anyway. I hadn’t disappointed him, that was what he told me and for the very first time, for the fraction of a second, I wondered if he was lying. I immediately regretted the thought. This was doubt and as I had been taught, doubt could be quite unhealthy if one didn’t know how to make use of its function. And I for one, didn’t know. For me it was something that held me back in life and crushed me, as we had already established before. He had seen it. He had seen it flash through my eyes. His expression changed ever so slightly. I couldn’t have named it even with a dictionary available. I was asked if I trusted him, which I did. Satisfied, my mentor stood again and dismissed me for the rest of the night to do whatever I wished.


End file.
